How does learner anxiety or "communication apprehension" affect foreign language learning? What is your experience as a learner? Have you ever felt such anxiety? Can anxiety play a positive role in learning? What can be done to alleviate anxiety in the classroom?
I've had to make what seems like hundreds of phone calls to customer service. Be it lenders (ugh), banks, retail stores, computer manufacturers, or the dreaded Comcast, I feel like I've gotten pretty good at communicating what I want and getting it from them. I feel so confident in my communication skills that no Comcast representative is going to ever convince me to upgrade my service or refuse to correct a disputed charge. Yet as soon as I have to use the phone in German the situation changes entirely - my confidence disappears, anxiety levels are high, and the chance for miscommunication or misunderstanding increases. Making an appointment to see a doctor next week becomes a Herculean task involving pep talks in the mirror, rehearsed, canned questions and responses, and much stumbling over my own words. Using a foreign language in the "real world" is tough. Your mind is working harder than usual to understand what you are being told, formulate an understandable and grammatically correct response (Krashen's "monitor" is on full alert), and at the same time sound confident, clam, and collected. Any language learner will tell you that there are times where the brain just becomes overwhelmed in this situation and shuts down. Ever spent what seems like 10 minutes grasping for the correct word when speaking to somebody you don't know and never finding it? I know I have.
Foreign language learner anxiety doesn't have to come in the form of making a real-world phone call though. Anybody who's been in a FL classroom knows the feeling of being called on to speak by the teacher and drawing a blank. Any FL teacher knows the blank stares of confused and anxious students and the frustrating question in the back of their mind: Why don't they know this yet? It's not hard!
Since we all know now that getting students to communicate in their L2 is extremely important and also how anxious students can get when being forced to talk, we must figure out ways of dealing with this issue. One strategy I have used is to limit the amount of "drilling" that takes place during class. Forcing students to talk one by one or at random in front of the whole class is a high pressure situation which will usually produce a class that is unwilling to use the language willingly for fear of being told they are incorrect. Instead, I believe that students should be encouraged to speak more ofter to each other in their L2. This is a lower stress situation where it is more acceptable to be incorrect and call the teacher over for more personalized help if they are confused about the activity. I also think it is a good idea to encourage students to help each other out without the teacher. Every class has a few students who "get it" and these students can be a valuable resource in smaller group work. The teacher can pair them with weaker students in an effort to bring the overall comprehension level of the class up. Furthermore, a teacher should also know when it is appropriate to correct a students grammar and pronunciation and when it is not. I think it is very damaging to student moral to interrupt them mid-sentence to correct a flubbed conjugation or case agreement. The student doesn't not get a chance to complete their thought and is receives too much negative reinforcement. Instead, I think it is better to point out errors after a student is finished speaking. This lets the student know that yes, you understood what they said, and by the way, to watch out for that past tense form next time.
Not all anxiety is bad though - a little pressure on the students can be a good motivator to try harder and be more successful in the L2. I think that it is important that a teacher learns how to recognize and deal with communication apprehension and find ways to work around it. It can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking "these students don't know anything" rather than recognizing that for some, it might be nerves and fear of being wrong that is causing them not to speak in class. Encouraging students to talk to each other in the L2 rather than to the teacher and using effective correction/feedback methods are just a few ways one might reduce overall learner anxiety in the language classroom.
You have brought up an interesting point. How do teachers provide oral feedback so it does not create speaking anxiety? One of the strategies I often use is called 'reformulation' - linguistic term. The teacher reformulates what the student says. Here is the example:
ReplyDeleteStudent: I go to Boston yesterday. Teacher: You went to Boston yesterday? Student: Yes, I went to Boston. It has proven to be very effective for speaking activities. Have you tried this before?
I can absolutely understand the blank looks that the teachers get when they ask a question and noone knows the answer. There are many different techniques that I have been practicing to avoid singling students out, but sometimes that is what it comes down to. I try to ask the question using different words, or in a different structure, or by asking them to say the question in English. In fact, with my Freshman class, I try to say everything twice and in a different way each time. As you said, there are always a couple of students in the class that just "get it" and are more willing to talk, which is good for them, but doesn't benefit all of the students. I think that there needs to be a good variation of activities and lesson plans that cater to speaking, listening, reading and writing and cater to the multiple learning styles.
ReplyDeleteI love the example of anxiety you bring up about making phone calls in a foreign language because it is so accurate. I have planned likely phrases I might need to use on the call before and will look up the appropriate vocabulary, because I know how hard it can be to understand someone on the phone. Once I spent a half an hour nervously watching my cell phone because I knew someone with a particularly thick accent who speaks at roughly the speed of light was going to call me. For me, I find overthinking to be a great source of my anxiety. In class, on the phone, and in conversation, I can give myself a minute or two to plan things out, but beyond that, I start to make myself nervous and it all goes downhill from there. So I think as long as you have a general strategy in mind, there is some value to speaking before you're completely convinced of how you want to express yourself word-for-word - but our anxiety makes this hard to remember when you're trying to pick up that phone.
ReplyDeleteAt the lower level, such as 401-402, I think motivation is the key. Most students probably do not care whether they can speak the target language so most of the times they won't participate in class. I don't view it as an anxiety issue. Unless you have a solid and fair system to grade their participation, students will not speak in front of the class. Of course, you also have some who are motivated or do not feel anxious of speaking L2 but their linguistic ability is somewhat limited.
DeleteHow can you evaluated whether a student is fearful, lazy, or perhaps just falling behind in their understanding? This seems like a difficult evaluation to make, and it can be key in adapting (slightly) your teaching style to accommodate those who are perhaps just confused or fearful.
DeleteYes Sebastian! I totally agree that peer to peer learning is one of the easiest ways to encourage participation and combat fear. Oftentimes even the nicest teacher can seem like "the bad guy" when they single out students for answers in front of their classmates—their anxiety actually leading them to make mistakes that they otherwise might not make.
ReplyDeleteI always found that I could speak more freely in front of my peers, and when my teacher came around and listened in on our conversations (making an edit of grammar here and there) I was proud of what I had managed to say all on my own!